"Hey, did you hear the latest update about those two?" A woman in her mid-thirties was saying to her other friends of her circle.
"Ah, you mean that her husband has filed the divorce paper?" Another woman around the same age replied.
"Right, right! It's a pity when they used to be such a heavenly-matched couple in the neighbourhood, isn't it?" The first responded, followed by some sighs of agreement from the others in the group.
Gossiping.
No one in their right mind would ever did that during the late afternoon when they were picking up their toddlers from a day care. Right?
But, Shinichi had to witness this one astonishing truth that these young moms were actually standing near by the entrance of Chiharu's day care center while talking about a certain divorcing couple whom he never even met himself for all the time he lived in the hood. In fact, he had been hearing them talking about that couple for almost a week already.
He had to bear with it though, since Ai couldn't escape from getting stuck in her school until quiet late to prepare for the upcoming cultural festival. It won't be fair to her other classmates after all if she was to get home early and not helping them at all. Besides, temporarily working from home gave him a more flexible timetable so, the task of picking Chiharu up befell upon him.
It was too obvious that the atmosphere around those women became more cheery and flowery once Shinichi greeted them out of courtesy. He couldn't just ignore his daughter's friends' parents, could he? Being the only handsome young man who ran an errand that only normal housewives would do had turned him into a jewel in the garbage, it seemed.
He would usually ignore their extended chit-chat and excused himself from the spot as soon as he had done picking Chiharu up. Yet, today was a bit different.
"I heard it was because she was hiding things behind his back that the husband accused her of cheating." One of the women said. "Wasn't she suspicious?"
Shinichi was frozen up in his track instantly once his ears caught her utterance.
The way she said it somehow stabbed his inner self. It reminded him that Ai had recently been hiding things from him as well, although he never even once had a negative thought about it. He believed she had her own reasons, so all he did was to keep trusting her just like what he did years ago while trying not to cross her mental boundaries too deep.
"What can I say? It was his fault for marrying someone who is much younger than himself." The other woman said. "While marriage is getting harder after five years, maybe he was getting insecure seeing many men fancying his wife."
That one was a direct hard blow in the heart for Shinichi. This coincidence was such a shitty joke. Because physically speaking, he was very much the older guy who was marrying a girl ten years younger than himself. And he clearly knew Ai was attractive– this was something he definitely couldn't deny. It was the thing that made him perturbed months ago when the soccer guy tried to get close to her.
Was he, perhaps, too naive to be thinking that everything was settled once he knew how she really felt toward him?
Looking back, he indeed proposed this marriage to her on a whim due to circumstances with Chiharu's adoption. So even if they did have mutual romantic feeling eventually, he couldn't be so sure if she truly wanted this kind of marriage. Not to say, a marriage with a toddler.
Oh, nice. Just when he thought their marriage was making a progress recently, he had to be struck with another dumbfounding possibilities.
"Dadda, a-you-arite?" A cute little voice coming from Chiharu woke him up from his scrambled thoughts. It confused her that her dad suddenly pulled her to a stop without any reason.
"Ah, no. It's just– well, I thought I saw a beautiful butterfly over there and was going to show it you but I guess it flew off." He sputtered sheepishly which earned some flowery giggles from the gossiping housewives at his back. If Shinichi alone was a jewel, then together with Chiharu, they were like a couple of eye-fresheners for those whose eyes were tired to see their own realities; the father-daughter duo always looked so cute together and carefree.
Looking at the little girl who was holding his hand so firm, his calm smile returned. Screw those young moms. Their gossip had only made his head even more messed up. But seeing how Chiharu was the real reason why he and Ai reunited, maybe he didn't need to worry about how she really felt toward their marriage that much.
Little did Shinichi know though, that his restlessness and curiosity were imprinted deep down in his head. He didn't realize it himself, not until when the gods seemed to test him out using Chiharu as the sweet bait. And it happened as immediately as he arrived home half an hour later, when he carried Chiharu to the nursery room to change her clothes and put her stuffs in.
It was when Chiharu went missing from the room.
As far as Shinichi remembered, he was turning his head away from the little girl only for a short second. Then he found her gone the next second he returned his eyes back on her now empty spot. He looked around the room and noticed the door wide opened.
Shit, it looked like he left it that way out of habit. He forgot that his daughter's leg muscles were growing stronger now.
Deducing that she won't be walking too far from where they originally were, the detective looked outside the room only to catch a sight of her running down the hallway toward the dead end. So with his long legs, he immediately caught up to her and seized her in his arms as he warned her the dangers of running without supervisions like that.
She kept wriggling her hands and legs though, trying to escape. She didn't give up just yet even though she knew her dad was no match for her in terms of strength. Her feet ended up kicking something that seemed like a door for they suddenly heard a half-clicking sound, followed by a creaking noise coming from near them. They turned quiet right away as they watched the door slowly opened.
That was then he realized they were standing right in front of Ai's former bedroom.
Taking the short pause to her advantage, Chiharu successfully released herself out of her dad's loosening grasp and ran into the room. That action of hers startled Shinichi and it annoyed him all the more when she threw a mischievous grin to him. This strong-headed little girl was so reminding him of his former brunette best friend.
Not later than a second, he saw his daughter already climbed on a small stool that was idly standing nearby the closet door. Hurriedly and worriedly, Shinichi pulled her into his arms once more just right when she was holding the door handle. Now, the door to the closet was so wide opened.
From the spot they were in, they could see a few clothes and some small boxes that were well-organized in there. Aware that they were probably belonged to the strawberry blonde, the detective turned panic.
If only he knew that Ai still kept some of her things in there, he won't be as dare as to enter the room without thinking. The first reason was surely because she would be mad at him if she ever knew it; the second was because it tweaked his curiosity so much at the possibilities that she might be hiding the things in there– the sacred things (or so he nicknamed them) that she tried so hard not to discuss with him recently. While he didn't find anything out of place in their room, her old closet looked suspicious enough to hide so many things right?
So of course, he fell into the temptation for the latter.
He was lucky enough that his conscience was still intact. It was flooding him with a whole lot of hesitance, reminding him that he had decided to wait for Ai to tell him things on her own while keeping his trust on her. His inquisitive mind rebuked it though, demanding him to go on with his urges.
In the midst of battling with his own moral senses and his curiosity, Shinichi had unknowingly let his guard down that Chiharu was able to escape from his arms once again. As if she had been prying on that certain thing from the closet since awhile ago, her hand went straight to take it once she was free.
"Daddaa! Look! Cat!" She showed the thing she took that turned out to be a headband to her dad, innocently wore it on her head. As much as Shinichi wanted to go fret over his daughter's sudden action, he couldn't help but to stifle a laugh watching how cute she was with the fake ears on.
Wait, is that a pair of cat ears? His mind was repeating one obvious question, feeling dumbstruck at the realization that it was probably the cat ears that had been haunting his curiosity.
Now, now, now. What was done was done. So tricking his own mind into believing that it was actually not him who scavenged through Ai's things in the closet, Shinichi walked toward the little girl.
"You better put those back, Chii." He chuckled nervously, while holding in his guilt that was building up slowly inside him.
He sat down beside her and took the headband off from her head. He tried to put it back in place but his mind couldn't stop imagining things further than it already had. Not to say, the feel of the fur on the headband through his fingers aroused him to a different level of comfort– he had to admit they were so fluffy and sleek and stress-relieving.
Meanwhile, Chiharu continued rummaging the things she found interesting, going deeper and deeper into the closet and making a slight mess. She retreated back to her spot beside her dad after she got a hold of a shopping bag that had a ribbon on it. She opened it and grabbed everything that were inside. With a teasing grin, she threw them all into the thin air.
It woke Shinichi up from his straying daydream the instant he felt something landed on top of his head. A dark purple strap that seemed to be a part of that something fell to his face, distracting his view slightly.
"Chii…" He growled lowly in annoyance, ready to scold his daughter again. She only laughed harder in reply to his warning, which made her dad gave up. It was no use to scold her when she was seeing it as a joke.
He removed it from his head afterwards and was going to return it to its respective place. He blushed instantaneously the second he got a complete view of the thing she threw. It turned out to be a dark purple bra– well, her dark purple bra. And the fact that this one was full of laces intrigued him more than the plain ones she kept in their closet.
His attention was diverted back to Chiharu when he saw from the corner of his eyes that the little girl was happily swinging something in her hand that looked similar to the lacy bra. It had the same color and laces, except that it was actually an underpants.
So this thing is supposed to be a pair?! He was stunned.
A card fell out from between the undergarment just then. Taking it to check the inside, Shinichi smiled dryly at its writing. It was for sure his mom's handwriting and the way the teasing lines went was something that only her could say.
Everything seemed to connect in his head now as he recalled the nonsense Yukiko uttered during their video call on Ai's birthday morning. He sort of understood as to why Ai was hiding it so hard from him. If he were she, he would do the same thing because it was embarrassing.
Nevertheless, his cheeks started to blush and his head began to stray away from his right mind again upon finding that these things were supposed to be worn by his wife for him.
Thinking back, perhaps he really shouldn't be entering this room in the first place. He couldn't get his dirty imaginations out from his brain now that he saw the additional stuffs. All together with the cat ears headband and the dark purple lingerie, she would definitely look so luscious.
"What are you doing in my room, Tantei-san?"
Shinichi was startled by the dreadful tone of his wife's voice that was coming from behind him so suddenly. She was home, it seemed, and was standing right by the door frame of the room with her arms crossed. She was boring her death glare so deep to the back of the detective's head that he started to feel his brain melt under the heavy pressure.
This would certainly be the death of him.
Turning around to explain everything with stuttering voice, Shinichi forgot that his hand was still holding the cat ears headband and the card while the other was holding the lacy bra. Ai caught them at one glance. Then her eyes went suspiciously to roam over the mess in the room and finally landed on the opened shopping bag that was lying near the closet doors.
"Mamma! Look!" Chiharu approached her mom and showed the last piece of the lingerie to her. Her smile was telling her that she was excited and happily satisfied. With that, Ai snapped.
"So is this the thing you actually do while I was away?" Ai's head was hung low; her bangs were covering the expressions on her face. Shinichi couldn't even see whether she was mad or what, but he somewhat caught a hint of her contradicting blushes on her slightly covered cheeks. "What a nice thing to teach Chii, huh?"
As anger and embarrassment mixed together in a big bubble pop, Ai walked closer to her husband's spot.
"N-No– Thi– Tha–" He was sputtering more nonsense, yet whatever came out from his throat didn't budge his wife's rage at all.
Perhaps like the old saying that went 'regrets always came later', and so did Shinichi reap what he sowed now.
Meanwhile, Chiharu was only laughing and smiling to her heart's content from aside. She had so much fun watching how her mom's devilish smile and sarcasms were troubling her dad so much. They just seemed to be so in love with each other– that was what she saw through her little wide eyes and it was enough to make her happy.
.
.
.
"Don't tell me you took those gossiping moms seriously." Ai's sneer was echoing through the thick fog in the bathroom as she leaned backward, resting her bare back to Shinichi's naked chest.
Propping his head with his hand on the edge of the tub, he rolled his eyes while his cheeks turned slightly rosy. She almost read him like an open book there and it surprised him when Ai told him that the gossip had actually been around for almost a month now.
"Not really." He defended himself. "Although it indeed makes me wonder for how you feel about this marriage."
"Huh?" She peeked at him from over her shoulder with confused look. Shinichi was met with her in the eye before he lowered his gazes as if guilt was taking control over his emotions.
"Well, you see. Things like if you're truly okay agreeing to this kind of marriage." He said. It seemed that the more he thought about that, the more he felt responsible for pulling her with him in this mess.
"Aren't you too late to ask that now?" She asked plainly yet her words stabbed his ears and pierce through his brain so hard that they all bled.
"Sorry..." He mumbled as he sank deeper into his misery. Too bad he was sinking too deep to miss Ai's soft smile for him.
"What about you then?" She asked in return. "You weren't thinking of getting married at that time as well, were you?"
There was a pause before he responded to her questions. It was right that the demand for Chiharu's adoption was the only thing that forced him to get married. Heck, he didn't even have a girlfriend at that time. So if it wasn't for that, he wouldn't be proposing to a girl just yet.
This was totally far from what he would call ideal, if he might honestly say. Despite his thanks for having to meet Ai again and her agreement to his lame marriage proposal, he didn't actually think that they would go this far, turning their convenient marriage real.
If there was ever an alternate universe where he and Ai were to meet like that day only that it was under normal conditions, both of them would surely take their relationship nice and slow. To realize their feelings for each other little by little, to bud their love gradually before committing themselves to a marriage and parenthood.
"Even though we are doing this in the reversed order, I don't think I regret any of these." He replied, smiling.
Hearing him say so, the curve on Ai's smile was getting wider. She pushed her back against him some more, resting the back of her head on his shoulder as she closed her eyes.
"And so do I." She said. "I guess I'm already too used to get tangled up in your mess to even regret everything, Shinichi."
"Heh, I bet you are." He chuckled as he put his arms around her in a tight hug.
Everything was indeed not in the correct sequence, but none of them seemed to mind it at all. Not like they ever began things in the right way anyway since way back then when they met for the first time. So, what differences would it make to their marriage if they ever followed the ideal order?
Perhaps none, because what more could they ask for when they had this little cupid Chiharu bringing them together?
Author's Note: Finally he found the cat ears! (haha). Anyway, I'm sorry for the late update. Maybe it was the weather that I fell asleep so easily recently while nighttime was the only time I could use to finishing up my fic (sobs).
All in all, I hope you like this chapter too. Don't forget to give it reviews or comments. They mean so dear to me. Happy reading!
Disclaimer: All characters of Detective Conan are belong to Aoyama Gosho. I don't own any single of them.